Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
I know of no cities that have a true one seat ride, unless they only have one terminal, and a tiny downtown. Certainly not Paris, London or any of the heavyweights.
Paris CDG, for example, has three terminals, and only T2 is connected to RER. And RER heads to Chatelet which is a ways east of the business heart of Paris. So the only way you have a "one seat ride" is if you're lucky enough to arrive at T2 and your destination is on the RER B (highly unlikely if you're a business or leisure traveler).
Let's pretend you have unlimited money and no NIMBYs. How could you do a one seat ride to, say, JFK? There are seven terminals. Where would it go in Manhattan? Even if it went directly to Times Square it would not give most visitors a one seat ride.
The LGA Airtrain isn't ideal, but it's a huge improvement, and there's no better option, so I'll take it.
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Whilst you are correct that there will for the majority of people never be a completely one-seat ride because the ultimate onward destination could be anywhere in a city especially for massive cities from New York to Paris, it completely ignores the whole reason for airport express services. Namely dedicated express services have dedicated train paths to segregate them from day-to-day commuter passengers and those travelling to/from a city centre and airport. They tend to have extra space for luggage, few stops, and when they do stop it is typically for onward access to other parts of a city and destinations further afield.
The problem with this LaGuardia AirTrain concept is that it replicates the same issues of getting to/from Manhattan to JFK and Newark, namely that you are forced to make a transfer regardless of your end destination, and you’re competing for non-airport passenger capacity on a train. All three of New York’s airports could easily have accommodated small branches to the LIRR and NJT lines that come close to the stations. The vast majority of infrastructure for a Newark to JFK service already exists for example.